Desperate Marketing Wannabe Gets Backed Into A Corner

[crazycanuk]

Hi all,

I'm brand new to marketing and copywriting... and VERY grateful to have stumbled across Clayton Makepeace and the Total Package.

My plans were to start learning and honing my chops online with some affiliate marketing presell letters. You know, something I could test without losing my shirt.

Well... my girlfriend has a slightly different idea. She's opening an optical in our town, and she's informed me that I'm in charge of the marketing.

So, here I am, as green as Kentucky Bluegrass at this stuff, and the one person I can't say no to has me in way over my head. Instead of sending cheap Google traffic to anything I write, I now have the pleasure of testing my very first piece of copy via newspaper advertising!

If anybody here would be so kind as to critique this ad, I'd be forever indebted

Attention

Here's the tenative plan:

1)That ad will be typeset to mimic an actual article in our local paper as closely as they'll let us get away with (Hense the lack of a signature at the end or a PS)

2)The idea is to drive people to request the free report, which will lead to an immediate upsell for a free "30 minute optical makeover" where we'll get them in the store and Jen can work her magic.

3) If the don't immediatly opt to book an appointment, they'll be placed in an autoresponder and direct mail sequence that continues to provide new reasons to book an appointment.

4) Once they have visited the store, they'll be switched over to a different follow up autoresponer and direct mail sequence that encourages repeat business and hopefully stimulates refferals.

If anyone has any suggestions about the marketing plan and/or the ad, don't be scared to hurt my feelings. if this sucks, I need to know.

Thanks so much,
Trevor

[Mr. Subtle]

Originally Posted by crazycanuk

Attention

Here's the tenative plan:

1)That ad will be typeset to mimic an actual article in our local paper as closely as they'll let us get away with (Hense the lack of a signature at the end or a PS)

Good luck on mimicing what you have in "Attention" as an advertorial. If you're not in a rush, I'd start collecting advertorials just to see how others are doing it.

The example below is a 1/4 page broadsheet advertorial that has been published a few times in my local newspaper. (Pardon the poor scan. Next time it appears I'll get a PDF of it since I now get the electronic edtion of my newspaper too.)

[Mr. Subtle]

Here's another 1/4 page broadsheet newspaper advertorial from the same company:



If you want a PDF of the page to see it...to read it better just PM me and I'll e-mail it to you.

[Garrett]

Mr Subtle,

I noticed that both of these ads originate from "James Direct" in Canton, Ohio. Is this another spin-off from Ben Suarez???

To the original poster - on the topic of Ben Suarez, some of his advertorials are the best in the business. You'll do yourself a huge favour by getting as many SCI ads as possible into your swipe file.